Carnival of Souls
by bigskydreamin
Summary: In the space between life and death, Scott gets a chance to save the chimeras from Theo, and possibly save himself in the process. Diverges from canon right after Theo kills Scott in 5X10


CHAPTER 1

Scott remembered dying.

He remembered his body turning against him. Limbs growing heavy with a weight he couldn't budge as his vitality escaped through open wounds. He remembered his breath coming slower and slower. Each shuddering gasp claiming less and less oxygen until finally there was no more to be found at all. He remembered his vision growing dim, blackness closing in on all sides. The pain that was like liquid fire in every synapse cooling, numbing, extinguishing until there was nothing to be felt at all -

 _\- it's okay. It doesn't hurt -_

He remembered fear, for his friends, his family, his pack. For whatever Theo might do to them. Panic that he wouldn't be there to help them, then confidence that they'd find a way through it anyway. Relief when he realized his part was done, that whatever came next, it wouldn't come down to him anymore. All flickering across the viewscreen of his mind, the last hurrah of nerve endings firing and misfiring. Not quite his life flashing before his eyes, but still the entirety of everything that mattered to him, there and gone again in the span of moments. Kinda the same thing, right?

He remembered closing his eyes for one last time. Opening his mouth for one last exhalation. Letting go of the life he'd been clinging to by just his fingernails - his claws - ever since that night Peter bit him. Falling backwards into oblivion. Embracing release. At long last, time to sleep.

The problem was, when he opened his eyes again in whatever manner dead men did that sort of thing…he was not expecting release to look like this.

Not that he'd had a clear vision of what he was expecting post-mortality. But the library felt a tad anticlimactic. It seemed the same as it had ten minutes ago. The dusty volumes lining the shelves looked as untouched as ever, a stark contrast to the floor still littered with the debris of his fight with Liam.

There was no blood though, he noted absently. That thought extended to another, and he realized there was no pain either. His gaze drifted down to his chest, where his wounds were completely healed. More than that, his shirt was pristine, as clean and whole as the day he bought it. His hand crept up to touch his face. No marks there either, though he was still in his half-wolf form. He shook it off himself like an unneeded coat and all evidence of his inhumanity melted away - at least as much as it ever did.

An approaching scent tickled his nose, familiar and not a threat, and Scott turned in time to see Mason come around the stacks. His bat was in one hand; his head down and intent on his phone in the other. That only lasted as long as it took him to realize someone was standing in front of him.

Some inarticulate screaming and the brandishing of the bat followed for a good thirty seconds after that.

"You're dead," Mason said at last. Not so much because he'd calmed down as because he'd already exhausted whatever energy he needed to turn his bat into an actual weapon. His chest heaved up and down with each word. Liam probably should be working on some stamina and endurance drills with him. "I saw you die - I just saw you die, man! You're dead."

Scott studied his hands, turning them over and watching the pale moonlight wash over them. "Am I though?"

He wasn't trying to be a smart ass. He was genuinely curious himself.

Mason squinted and edged closer. "What, are you some kind of ghost? Are werewolf ghosts a thing now? Wait, were they always a thing?"

Scott settled on a look he hoped would convey 'I'm being patient here but that's not going to last forever.'

"It's a legitimate question. You people never tell me anything," Mason defended. "But if you're a ghost, how come I can see you? Hey, do you think seeing ghosts maybe is my superpower?"

"I don't think I'm a ghost, Mason." Scott banged his hand against a shelving unit, y'know, just to be sure, but Mason reached out and started poking his chest and shoulder anyway. "Stop that!"

The other boy looked a little crestfallen, but he recovered quick.

"Well, I mean, it's good that you're not dead. Or a ghost! Definite good things there, like some A+ quality facts." His head bobbed up and down vigorously. "It's just - and this isn't a complaint or a criticism or anything - but umm. How?"

"I honestly don't have a clue."

"Okay. Okay, so." Mason started. Stopped. Chewed his lip. Paced. "Again, really not trying to portray this as a bad thing, in any way, shape or form. Definitely not. Just a little stuck here. Because I literally just saw Theo, like…fucking _murder_ you. You bled out on the floor, your heart stopped, you were dead, stone cold dead, I finally gave up CPR and I was just like, sitting there and it was at least fifteen minutes, so -"

"Wait," Scott interrupted. "You've been here this whole time since Theo…why?"

Mason stared in confusion. "Why what?"

Scott stared back. "Why are you still here?"

"What do you mean why am I still here? You just died, man. I couldn't just leave you here."

"Why not? I was dead, you said it yourself, there was nothing you could do. Why aren't you with Liam? He could really use you right now."

The other boy's scent was curdling with the distinct smells of upset, though Scott couldn't say for sure just what angle it was coming from. Look, whatever he was right now, he'd definitely just been dead. Maybe his critical thinking faculties were still rebooting?

"You honestly mean that, don't you?"

"What, that you should be with Liam right now?" Scott frowned. "Of course I do, why wouldn't I?"

"Oooookay," Mason said, wide-eyed. "Well we're gonna put a pin in that for now and circle back around to it later. I only just got my learner's permit and there's only so much I'm equipped to handle at once. Back to the matter of your inexplicable resurrection."

"So!" With renewed focus, Mason strode over to the library steps and slammed his bat down against the floor below them. The aluminum clanged off the tiles with a booming echo that reverberated up to the rafters. "You were here. Dead. Bereft of life, having the qualities of a corpse, dead, dead, dead."

"Please stop saying that."

Mason winced. "Sorry. Anyway. I was right here."

He stepped a few feet to the left.

"And then I pulled out my phone to call…umm…everyone? But I had no signal, so I went over here."

He walked over in between some stacks.

"But I still had no signal, and when I turned around, you were gone. And so I thought you'd been corpse snatched? Y'know, like the chimera bodies. And so I ran up to the roof to try and get a signal there."

"And did you?" Scott felt the familiar acid of anxiety swell in his gut like a rising tide. Ever since he'd found himself…not dead, he'd been filled with a strange sense of complacency as he tried to make sense of it all. But now, the old panics and fears for what Theo or the doctors might be doing to his pack came rushing back in to fill the void.

"No," Mason said, frowning. "Maybe my phone's busted? Hey, what about yours? Your wardrobe magically restored itself - cool trick by the way, totally jealous here - is your phone in similar mint condition?"

"I have no idea," Scott said. He felt around in his pockets for his phone, pulled it out, and dialed Stiles on instinct. Nothing. No ringtone, no busy signal, no 'this call can not be completed as dialed'. Just dead air.

With panic mounting, he tried other numbers. Lydia, Malia, his mom. Kira. Liam, Deaton. Nothing went through.

"Something's wrong," he said, staring at the useless device in his hand. "Something is very wrong here."

"So this isn't usual Saturday night shenanigans for you guys?" Mason nodded thoughtfully. Then frowned. "I don't know I should be more terrified by that or less."

"It's Beacon Hills," Scott said. He looked out through the library window to where the moon hung large and ominous overhead. "Always go with more."

Leaving the library did nothing to calm either of their nerves. The night outside was still, unnaturally so. Lights were out, Scott's motorbike wouldn't start. Fog shrouded the streets, blanketing the ground in a never-ending gray sameness made all the more inexplicable by the fact that the ocean was much too far away to account for this much moisture in the air.

They walked through the dark.

There were no nature noises at all, Scott realized belatedly. No crickets, no owls, no mournful coyote cries in the distance. They passed through a residential neighborhood, flanked on both sides by two story houses with front yards and picket fences. No dogs barked at their passage; no snores or even heartbeats echoed at the edges of his hearing. It was like they were the only two people in the world.

"Well, this isn't creepy at all," Mason said, as though reading his mind. He flexed his double-handed grip around the bat.

They came to an intersection. Suddenly, a row of streetlights snapped on to the left of them, chasing back shadows and flooding one road with pools of pale yellow illumination.

"Oh yay," Mason said faintly. His mouth hung slightly open. "It got creepier."

This was destined to end badly. Scott was absolutely positive of that. But it was purely for lack of any better ideas that they turned down the street and followed the warped yellow brick road further into the night.

"Okay, new theory," Mason said, a half mile into their new direction. The hum of the streetlights underscored his voice, a steady drone that stood out when compared to the total silence they'd walked through until now. "We're starring in a slasher movie. Only, plot twist! God is the serial killer."

"On the off chance you're on to something, is now really the best time to be speaking ill of any potential higher powers around here?" Scott mused.

"Huh. Good point," Mason said. He stopped and tilted his head back, shouting up at the sky. "I'm really sorry. I didn't actually mean anything by it!"

Scott shook his head.

"No, but c'mon," the younger boy continued, jogging to catch back up to Scott. "Someone's Netflix queue has got a serious 80's horror film theme. Michael Myers is gonna pop out of this mist any second now, you just wait."

"I'm pretty sure I could take Michael Myers," Scott assured him. Mason frowned.

"Oh yeah? Well what about a whole shambling horde of ghouls? This is definitely a 'the dead will rise' kind of night - "

He paused and took a cautious step away from Scott, eyeing him warily.

"Just so we're clear, if you turn out to be part of the zombie apocalypse, I will bash your brains in with my bat," he said. "I'll totally feel bad about it later, but I'll do it, man."

Despite himself, Scott's lips failed to suppress a smirk. "Noted," he said wryly.

It was impossible to guess how long they kept walking through the unnatural night. Lights continued to snap on at their approach, leading them through the town. They were approaching the outskirts with still no sign of any destination when the faint hints of music and laughter reached the edge of Scott's hearing.

"There's something ahead," he told the other boy, quickening his pace. Mason muttered behind him, but lengthened his own strides to match.

"And we're sure that's a good thing?"

Sooner than Scott had expected, they came to a curve in the road, affording them a view of empty fields that stretched below the hill they stood upon. Or at least, fields that should be empty, given their usual state whenever Scott had driven down this road before. They stood at the guard rail, looking down at a sea of lights and music. A busy carnival spanned a couple of square miles at the edge of the town, filled with neon lights and garish signs, games and carousels and a Ferris Wheel. It was packed to the brim with all the bodies and voices and laughter the rest of the town was lacking.

"Okay, that definitely was not here earlier," Mason said.

"No, it wasn't," Scott agreed quietly. "There hasn't been a carnival in Beacon Hills since I was a kid. I used to go every summer with my parents, back before my dad left."

"Wait, we're not in some weird metaphysical headspace or memory of yours, are we?" Mason narrowed his eyes. "Because I gotta tell you, it's hard enough being practically the only one without claws or healing or superpowers. If I find out I'm just your hallucination, that could seriously cripple my self-esteem."

"Well, let's hope that's not the case then," Scott said without taking his eyes off the strange sight below. "Because there's only one way to find out." 

Up close, the carnival looked exactly like Scott would expect a carnival would look. He didn't think it was the same as the one that used to come through town when he was a kid, but his childhood memories were fuzzy at best. It was hard to say for sure.

They walked towards looming, extravagant gates marking the entrance to the festivities. There was no line to get in despite the fullness of the crowds on the other side. Just one lone figure in a hoodie manning the ticket booth. Scott's world slowed to a crawl. His vision narrowed in on her hands with laser sharp focus as they approached. It was definitely a her, he could say for certainty even without being able to make out any other details of her figure beneath the bulky sweatshirt. Her fingers were long and graceful where they shuffled ticket stubs and rearranged the contents of a cash box. More importantly, they were familiar, the way they danced through their movements with delicate certainty. He knew those fingers, had seen them perform a hundred different actions all with the same ease and dexterity. Whether stringing a bow, sharpening a knife, or sliding her hands along the length of his torso, her fingers had always been a symphony of motion, and he, their captive audience.

She had no scent he could detect, but he knew what he'd find beneath her hood long before he stepped close enough to see for sure.

"Allison."

"Scott." She pushed back the hood and smiled at him. It stole his breath as effortlessly as it when they'd first met. He might not be in love with her the same way he had been back then, but call it nostalgia, call it whatever the fuck you wanted - it was still worth dying, just to see it one more time.

"You're -," he stuttered. Stopped. He couldn't find the words. But then, he'd never needed them with her.

"I am," she said, twisting her lips in that shy, pleased smirk that was her laughing at him in a way he was absolutely okay with being laughed at.

"I don't understand. I don't understand any of this."

"Umm, yeah, me neither," Mason butted in. "Clearly, this is a moment right here, and I hate to be a dick about it, but we've already established that Scott definitely did die, and if you're who I think you are, you are definitely dead too, but one of these things is not like the others because I definitely did not die tonight. I am very, very certain I would have noticed that if I did!"

Hysteria had finally seeped fully into his voice, not that Scott could blame him in the least. He was impressed the younger boy had lasted this long.

"You're not dead," Allison assured him. Mason's heartbeat rapidly decelerated into a more manageable rhythm. She'd always had a way of putting people at ease.

"So. This isn't heaven, hell, purgatory, or some non-denominational version of any of the three?"

"No. It's not."

"Oh." Mason blinked and settled back on the balls of his feet. He let his bat-wielding arm fall loosely to his side. "Well. Okay then. That's good to know. Carry on."

"Where is here then?" Scott asked. In place of the question desperately fighting to get free - _how are you here_?

She heard both anyway.

"Here is…complicated. It's not a permanent kind of place, and I'm here…on loan, you could say. They expected you'd need some help."

"Who are 'they'?"

Allison tilted her head, the way she always did when she was considering how best to answer something. "The people you've been fighting, these dread doctors. They're very old, and they're very dangerous. And in the manner of very old, dangerous people, they've pissed off a lot of people and made some very powerful enemies along the way."

"And those enemies, they're responsible for all this?"

Allison nodded. "The Dread Doctors were normal human scientists once. Their experiments led them to co-opt forces humans were never meant to control, and to spaces humans were never meant to set foot in."

She waved her hand at the bustling carnival behind her. "This is one of those spaces. Call it an in between space. The universe is made of dichotomies. Opposites and opposing forces. Night and day. Dreaming and waking. Life and death. These are the spaces that exist in between. Right at the boundary line where one blurs into the next. Thresholds - that's their domain."

"So we're in a space between life and death right now?" Scott asked. "But why?"

"The doctors have broken a lot of rules, rules that exist for a reason. It's inspired their enemies to break a few rules of their own."

"So I'm not dead," he said. "But I'm not actually alive either, am I?"

"Not yet. As of right now, it can still go either way."

"But I'm alive," Mason said. "So why am I here? _How_ am I here?"

She regarded him thoughtfully. "I'm not sure, to be honest. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because tethers are a force all their own. The connections between people, especially the connection between someone and their alpha, poised on the boundary line between life and death, trying to hold him back from crossing over…that's power. When they shuffled Scott into this space instead, it's possible they tapped your own pull on his spirit to do it. And you got dragged along for the ride."

"Wait, you're saying Scott's my alpha?"

She shrugged. "Are you saying he's not?"

Mason went silent. It didn't last long. Allison let a fresh smile bloom even as new questions leaped to the younger boy's lips, and she shot it Scott's way. He let one of his own grow in response. He'd always taken it for granted she would have liked the new additions to their pack.

"So who are these guys anyway? Are we talking angels? Demons? Some old school gods or something like that?"

"They're not exactly what people think they are these days," she said. "But they're what mortals think of as Fae."

Mason's eyes positively lit up. "I was just about to guess that!"

As much as he wanted to just stand back and watch the boy pick Allison's brain for a full Faerie infodump, Scott had a feeling they didn't have the time for that. He cut Mason off reluctantly.

"So what do I have to do to end up on one side of things or the other? I'm guessing these Fae aren't just offering me this chance out of the goodness of their hearts."

"No, they don't really do altruism," Allison laughed wryly. "But that doesn't mean they have some sinister agenda either. It's an enemy of my enemy kind of deal. Helping your pack defeat the dread doctors helps them. And they brought you here to give you a better chance of doing just that."

"What do they want him to do?" Mason asked, anxious. Scott tried and failed to muster the same kind of feeling himself. All he could summon was something more akin to weariness. He'd been an idiot to think he could escape expectations even in death. Life sucked, why did so many people just assume the afterlife would be any different?

"You're not the only ones here. Some of the chimeras the doctors killed are here as well." She waved again at the carnival behind her. For the first time Scott considered what all those crowds behind the gates meant. Were they the Fae Allison talked about? Or souls like his, caught between life and death like game pieces waiting to be placed somewhere on the board?

"Theo is reviving some of them back in the material world," Allison continued, snapping Scott's focus back to her. "But there's a difference between just reviving someone's body and mind the way he plans, or bringing them all the way back, body and soul."

"And that's where we come in," Scott said, eyes narrowed.

She nodded. "They've all suffered," she said gently. "Like we all did, but at least we had each other. For all intents and purposes, they were alone, and they're tired. The material world - it doesn't have a lot left to offer them besides more pain."

Her eyes held his, saying more than just her words did. Scott looked away first.

"But the doctors and Theo overlooked something. The doctors made their chimeras with werewolf genes as base stock for all of them, before hybridizing them with something else. Wolves may not have the flashy abilities some other creatures like kitsune have, but as far as shapeshifters go, they don't come much hardier or resilient than werewolves. They offered the best chance of blending well with a third set of genes."

"And that's the part they overlooked," she continued. "These chimeras, they're not just kanima/werewolf and jaguar/wolf hybrids. They're three creatures in one. Human, wolf and kanima or whatever else. You have far more in common with them than they realize, Scott. Than even you realize. Be the alpha their wolf natures crave, give them reasons to embrace their humanity, and that's two sides of their triple-sided nature. It will always outweigh the third, and negate whatever influence Theo or the doctors try and wield."

"And what if I can't?"

"Then you can't." Allison shrugged. "But at least you'll have tried."

He nodded, but couldn't lift his eyes from the dirt at his feet.

"I'm tired too."

She laughed sadly. "I was wondering if you'd ever admit that." She reached out across the counter of the ticket booth and took his hand. "I can walk with you part of the way, if it helps. It's not a lot, I know. But it's what I can give you."

His eyes brimmed. "It would," he said, voice gone raw. "Help, I mean."

She smiled. "Well then. Shall we go save everyone one more time?"

"It's all I ever wanted," Scott said. Her smile dipped ever so slightly.

"You always did need higher standards."

Allison came around the ticket booth and led them to the gates. Wrought iron creaked open of its own volition at her approach, and they entered a world of chaos made flesh.

Sounds hit his eardrums at a volume the real world could never compare to, yet somehow it wasn't painful or overwhelming. Instead it filled him up, seeping into his skin and flooding his veins with an artificial vitality he recognized as unnatural without quite bringing himself to care. His steps lightened, became more on par with the way the throngs surrounding them practically danced on air, gliding from one space to the next as though gravity were merely a suggestion here.

Colors bombarded him at every direction. A strobing rainbow of hues with no earthly counterparts, glossing everything over with an ethereal sheen.

"Why a carnival?" He shouted to be heard over the roar of the crowds. Bells and whistles chimed as rides launched from wooden platforms. Barkers stood in front of their booths hawking their games to any and all passerby.

"I didn't book the venue," Allison shouted back. "I just work here. I think they just like their parties."

"Even though none of it's real?" Scott questioned more softly. There was a manic desperation on the face of every party-goer dancing past them, a hint of something bubbling just beneath the surface.

"Eye of the beholder," was all she said back. "Everything is only as real as we tell ourselves it is. We all like our illusions."

They waded through the masses, Scott following Allison's lead and Mason trailing just behind. She moved with definite purpose, a clear destination in mind. He stumbled as countless carnival patrons jostled him and got underfoot, but his mind was elsewhere. There were so many things he wanted to say, so many questions he wanted to ask her, he was at a loss of where even to begin. Had she seen everything that had happened since she died? Was she watching the whole time? What did she think of how he'd handled things? What could he have done better?

"You know - Kira and I -" and holy shit, was he trying to talk to his dead ex girlfriend about his living current girlfriend? Why had he thought that was the thing to lead with?

"I know, Scott," Allison laughed gently. "It's not like it wasn't inevitable while I was still alive."

"I didn't want you to think…" He shook his head, frustrated. "I mean, when we broke up, when I said I'd wait for you as long as it took, I did mean it. It's just…"

"It's just that things change." She shrugged. "When I was six, I told my dad I was going to live forever. I meant it at the time too. Some things just don't work out how we plan."

"Your new packmate is staring at me," she added after he fell silent. Mason flushed.

"I'm not staring! Okay, I mean, I totally was, but I didn't mean to be rude. It's just that I've heard so much about you, but only in that not at all sort of way? Wait, that makes no sense. I mean, I know who you are, cuz Liam knows who you are, but we don't really know anything, because nobody ever really talks about you? You know? No offense," he added hastily. "Wait, that possibly sounded really bad."

"None taken," Allison smiled. "I know exactly what you mean, and it's fine. A pack takes their cues from their alpha, after all. And Scott has always been of the opinion that some pains aren't meant to be shared."

Ouch. That was a definite dig. "Nobody benefits from spreading misery around," Scott said stiffly. "I never meant for people not to talk about you, I just…I handle things myself. I don't see how it would have helped anyone to do otherwise."

"It might have helped you, Scott," she sighed, but shook her head as though to let the subject drop. Mason piped up before she could.

"Oh, so this isn't just him reacting weird to getting murdered right? This is a thing with him?"

Scott frowned. What did that even mean?

"Oh no, it's definitely a Scott thing," Allison said. Mason nodded in relief, as though some great mystery had just been solved.

"I'm right here," Scott said, mildly aggrieved.

"Yes you are. And here we are too," Allison said. She halted in front of a rustic looking shooting gallery. Artfully aged timber flanked a doorway that opened into a dark and narrow interior. Rifle fire sounded from within, and the smell of gunpowder assailed his nose. He furrowed his brow. This didn't seem like just a carnival game.

"And where is this exactly?"

He was starting to feel redundant.

"Hayden Romero," Allison said, gesturing towards the door. "Human, werewolf and werejaguar. She's right through there. Angry and hurting and afraid, and that's where and how she's going to stay unless someone changes all that."

"A shooting gallery," Mason said thoughtfully. He nodded. "That kinda makes sense."

"You know her sister's a cop, right?" He elaborated when Scott looked to him for clarification. "They used to go to the gun range all the time after their parents died. Made Hayden feel safe, I think. I don't know the details, but I know whatever happened to her parents…well, I'm pretty sure it was violent."

Of course it was, Scott thought ruefully. Who would expect anything different from an orphan in Beacon Hills? All the monsters and villains they'd all ever faced…they always picked the broken ones for their games, it seemed like. Maybe they put up less of a fight.

He tried not to think of what that said about Peter picking him that night a lifetime ago. But then, he'd been trying not to think of that for years.

"And I suppose it's just a coincidence that they picked her to start with?" Scott said, anger rising within him, though he couldn't say for sure where it originated. "The sixteen year old girl who just died while the boy who loved her couldn't do anything but watch? And it's just a coincidence that you're here with me to 'help me' with her?"

"Less coincidence, more shitty manipulation," Allison said evenly, not even bothering to pretend otherwise. And how could she of all people be so calm? Hadn't they both been manipulated enough?

"The Fae are generally known for being massive dicks," Mason spoke up hesitantly. "It's in all the stories. I mean, it's basically a trope."

"So I should probably expect more of this," Scott spat. "Just so we're clear?"

"You're angry," Allison said. "Good."

That set him back a little. "What?"

"You've always been so determined not to be anything like Peter or Deucalion, or like Derek was, that you never let yourself see that part, Scott. There are different kinds of anger. There's selfish anger, anger that hurts - but there's righteous anger too. Anger at those who have done the hurting. Channel _that_ anger. Use _that_."

"There's a girl in there whose whole being, whose whole life was hijacked just because some decrepit old men wanted more power," Allison said. "Go be angry for her. Go be angry with her. She deserves that much."

Scott peered into the darkened corridor, uncertain now that his initial rage had cooled a little, unsure of how to get it back. If he even wanted it back, no matter how much sense her words made.

"I don't know what to say to her."

"Why don't you start with everything you wish someone had said to you?"

He paused, caught off guard yet again. Even as he weighed what she said, poking at it as though mining for flaws, Allison leaned forward and gave him a peck on his cheek.

"Go get 'em, tiger," she said, giving him a light push. "We'll be right behind you."

Scott stepped through the door and into the dark.


End file.
